Résumé : Since the recent announcement of the Anthropocene by climatologists, there has been an increasing awareness that this new epoch, characterized by the ascendance of humans as the primary geological force affecting the planet, requires new theoretical concepts that are adequate to this new reality. Current trends in critical theory offer new ways to understand our situation. Examining the recent focus on matter and the material body, my aim is to add another ‘type’ of materialism to the conversation – one that grasps human activity itself as a material force, which may be a particularly fruitful approach for an epoch where the power of human activity has become so amplified.

Résumé: How is it possible that children who grow up in a same family end up being so different? What is the role of the environment in children’s development? Different approaches in psychology have tried to outline responses to those questions. In this presentation I discuss the answers that derive from the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. I discuss in particular Vygotsky’s concept of perezhivanie: a theoretical tool for the analysis of the influence of social environment, the social situation, and the social situation of child development. Pedagogical, psychological, sociological, and philosophical implications will be discussed.